Unemployed widow and two young children evicted from Lisbon council flat – Portugal Resident

An unemployed 26-year-old widow and her two children, aged two and four, have been evicted from the Lisbon municipal flat in which the children had lived since birth.

The eviction was carried out by Gebalis, the company managing Lisbon City Council’s housing estates, after it rejected the mother’s attempt to have the tenancy regularised following the deaths of her partner and his grandmother.

Residents and campaigners in Marvila have described the removal as one of the most “inhumane and violent” evictions seen in the parish. They are demanding that Lisbon mayor Carlos Moedas intervene to allow the family to return.

The family had been living in a seventh-floor flat in Bairro do Condado. The registered tenant was the grandmother of the young woman’s partner, while the partner — the father of both children — was officially included in the household.

The young mother and children were not included in Gebalis’s household records.

According to the Marvila Residents and Users Commission (COMUM), the first child was registered at the address of the mother’s family after being born in 2021. The family later changed its registered tax address but failed to update the household composition held by Gebalis.

In 2024, tragedy struck twice within a matter of months: first the children’s father died, followed by his grandmother, the registered tenant.

The widow notified Gebalis of both deaths and attempted to regularise the family’s occupation of the flat. She submitted a certificate from Marvila Parish Council confirming that she lived at the property and continued paying the rent.

Gebalis reportedly accepted those payments until December 2025, when it informed her that the evidence provided was insufficient and ordered her to leave.

The municipal company claimed the household authorised to occupy the flat had consisted solely of the grandmother and her grandson.

“The death of both necessitated a review of the situation in accordance with the relevant legal provisions,” Gebalis told SIC.

It said the documentation submitted ‘failed to demonstrate that the young woman occupied the property before October 1, 2021, under the criteria required for regularisation’. As a result, Gebalis maintained that there was no legal basis to transfer the tenancy to her.

Gebalis added that it had informed the widow in November 2024 that she should apply for municipal housing through Lisbon’s Habitar Lisboa programme.

The woman challenged the eviction order through the courts. Her initial request for an injunction was rejected, but her lawyer subsequently lodged an appeal.

COMUM claims Gebalis was unaware of that appeal and proceeded with the eviction unlawfully. That allegation has not been independently confirmed.

The commission said the family was removed from the flat last Thursday morning in the presence of what it described as a “large and intimidating municipal police operation”, without prior warning.

It further alleged that the family’s possessions were removed, packed and taken to a municipal warehouse without an inventory being made.

The two children avoided witnessing the eviction only because they were at nursery, COMUM said.

Campaigners also criticised the apparent absence of social workers or representatives from the Santa Casa da Misericórdia to assist the newly homeless family.

“The young woman was put out on the street, and nobody was there to provide social support, even though they knew perfectly well that she was a widow with two dependent young children,” said Lisbon CDU (communist) councillor Sofia Lisboa, who has supported the family.

COMUM described the council’s intervention, through Gebalis, as “antisocial and insensitive” and demanded its urgent reversal.

The mother, campaigners and Sofia Lisboa went to Lisbon City Hall seeking an emergency meeting with Moedas. Although the mayor did not receive them, they secured a meeting with the management of Gebalis, which maintained that the family did not qualify for regularisation.

Lisboa said the case ultimately required a political decision rather than a purely administrative response.

“It is Lisbon City Council, led by Carlos Moedas, that is choosing eviction instead of regularisation,” she said.

The council has created a social problem where none previously existed, she argued, by removing a mother and two children from an established home instead of transferring the tenancy following the deaths of the authorised occupants, the children’s blood relatives.

“It is in the children’s best interests to regularise the situation so that they can remain in the home where they were born and have always lived,” said Lisboa.

Campaigners are continuing to press Moedas and Gebalis to reverse this eviction and provide the family with secure housing.

Sources: SIC Notícias/ AbrilAbril